This is Part Four in a four-part series. In Part One, I focused on the critical first step of defining DevOps with a purpose by thinking about DevOps in the context of your organization’s applications. In Part Two, I provided four tips to fostering a DevOps culture in your organization. In Part Three, I discussed the role of tools and how they can amplify (or constrain) individual and team abilities as well as work across teams.

In this final fourth part of the series, I’m going to weave the three previous topics of (A)pplications, (C)ulture, and (T)ools together and will show how you can ACT with purpose to start your own DevOps transformation. Your DevOps strategy should incorporate all three aspects of applications, culture, and tools. Given the breadth of those three areas, thought, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed from the start. Here’s a tip I learned from a mentor a few years ago. Whether you are a CEO, VP, or team leader, smart leaders set a vision (often at least two or three years out) and then they make small decisions every week with the goal of generally moving the organization or team in the direction of the vision over time.

I recommend first that you set a vision for DevOps as it relates to your Applications, your Culture, and your Tools. Let’s begin with Applications. In the first article, I shared the concept of the pace-layering model developed by Gartner. To set a DevOps vision for your applications, place each of your current applications into one of the three layers – system of record, system of differentiation, or system of innovation. Then, do the same thing for any applications you are planning to add to your portfolio.

With that context, specific to your organization, formulate a strategic vision for how DevOps will apply to your systems in each layer. Will you seek to have DevOps principles for continuous integration and continuous delivery in place for all of your systems of innovation, and if so, by when? How about for systems of differentiation? Will DevOps be the norm for each of those applications or just some, and by when? Then ask yourself the same questions about your systems of record.

Next, turn to your culture. In Part two, I discussed the importance of baselining the degree of collaboration you have between the business, dev, and ops as well as how you view work (in workstations or in end-to-end flow terms). Then I challenged you to incentivize people to modify their behavior both with respect to their roles and as individuals. With this as context, define your DevOps cultural vision. What does collaboration between the business and development look like in the future? What does collaboration look like between development and operations? How about between dev, QA, and ops? And let’s not forget security.

How will you recognize when your culture is optimized for flow? For example, I recommend documenting a set of indicators that you can measure at regular intervals (e.g. quarterly). Here are three good ones. How much work-in-process (WIP) do we have for Application X today vs. how much was there a quarter ago? What is the average time it takes from the definition of a requirement to its deployment in production today vs. a quarter ago? How often did we make updates to Application X in production this quarter vs. last quarter?

Now, let’s consider tools. Take a baseline of the tools you are using today for each step of the typical DevOps tool chain from requirements management to source code control and bug tracking through to build management, automated testing, configuration management and deployment. And don’t forget project management tools too. What is the state of your tool investment in each of these areas? Do you have gaps? Do you have multiple tools in the same area, and, if so, is that okay or do you want to standardize on one? Do your tools vary based on the applications they are used with (see pace-layering discussion above)?

Then take an inventory of your collaboration tools across dev and ops. Are you still mostly using email and sharepoint sites? What role does instant messaging play in your dev and ops teams today? What about conference calls and meetings? Once you’ve baselined where you are today, set a vision for where you want to be in the future. Are you looking to reduce the need for conference calls and meetings, and if so by how much (time or average number of participants)? What issues are you running into around email and IM communications that need to be addressed and also for SharePoint? Have you looked at the emerging class of DevOps collaboration tools and concepts such as ITinvolve and ChatOps? What role can they play in streamlining communications, keeping people informed, and presenting information to staff so they don’t have to go hunting around for it in dozens of systems or call more meetings?

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

With this as background, define your DevOps tools vision by setting priorities for filling identified gaps and rationalizing existing investments, then set a general target time frame for each area.

Now that you’ve set a vision in each area – (A)pplications, (C)ulture, and (T)ools, it’s time to ACT. I recommend you first pick one or two applications to begin your DevOps journey. Ideally, they should be applications that are visible to the business and where you can lay claim to the impact DevOps can have on business goals like time-to-market and responsiveness to customer needs.

Once those applications are identified, take an inventory of all the people across your organization (including the business), those responsible for the development and delivery of the applications. Develop a specific plan for how you will educate those individuals on DevOps principles (e.g. attend DevOpsDays, read The Phoenix Project, read a sets of articles and watch a set of seminar or demo recordings), and also develop a specific plan for how you will incentivize behavior changes for their roles as well as what is expected of first line managers to take individual personalities, skills, and experiences into account.

Let me also stress that you shouldn’t ignore the people who aren’t participating in this first DevOps effort as part of your communications. Educate them as well, for example through an all-hands meeting and an email from leadership. Explain why the company is investing in DevOps transformation, why these applications have been chosen, and your long-term vision across Applications, Culture, and Tools to realize the transformation. Help them understand where the organization is going and why, and how it may impact them in the future. Avoid the perception that “the best people were picked for this and you are not among them” or that this group of people is being given license to do things that others can’t (e.g. make changes outside of the standard change management process) – otherwise, you risk reducing morale, good people leaving, and even sabotage of your DevOps efforts.

Once you’ve completed the above, map the relevant tools you have in place today for managing the development and delivery of these applications as well as the tools on your vision roadmap defined above that will be added or rationalized in the next six months.

By following the above recommendations, you will now have an action plan for the near term and a long-term vision you can use to guide daily decisions to move you closer to that vision. Lastly, don’t be rigid about your short-term plan or long-term vision, recognize that everyone is learning, including you, and that one of the key principles behind DevOps is the feedback loop!

ITinvolve creates Cross-Team Workspaces that bring the right people, tools, information and analysis together to help teams do their jobs more effectively.

Supporting workspaces for development and infrastructure projects, IT management processes, what-if scenarios, and environment analysis, ITinvolve is the application where IT and the business work together to achieve greater agility while ensuring operational stability and quality. Less searching, less guesswork, and fewer silos – that’s People Powered IT™. For more information, visit www.itinvolve.com.

Dion Hinchcliffe is an internationally recognized digital expert, bestselling book author, frequent keynote speaker, analyst, futurist, and transformation expert based in Washington, DC. He is currently Chief Strategy Officer at the industry-leading digital strategy and online community solutions firm, 7Summits.

Digital Transformation and Disruption, Amazon Style - What You Can Learn. Chris Kocher is a co-founder of Grey Heron, a management and strategic marketing consulting firm. He has 25+ years in both strategic and hands-on operating experience helping executives and investors build revenues and shareholder value. He has consulted with over 130 companies on innovating with new business models, product strategies and monetization. Chris has held management positions at HP and Symantec in addition to ...

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Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life settlement products to hedge funds and investment banks. After, he co-founded a revenue cycle management company where he learned about Bitcoin and eventually Ethereal. Andrew's role at ConsenSys Enterprise is a mul...

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Dion Hinchcliffe is an internationally recognized digital expert, bestselling book author, frequent keynote speaker, analyst, futurist, and transformation expert based in Washington, DC. He is currently Chief Strategy Officer at the industry-leading digital strategy and online community solutions firm, 7Summits.

Digital Transformation and Disruption, Amazon Style - What You Can Learn. Chris Kocher is a co-founder of Grey Heron, a management and strategic marketing consulting firm. He has 25+ years in both strategic and hands-on operating experience helping executives and investors build revenues and shareholder value. He has consulted with over 130 companies on innovating with new business models, product strategies and monetization. Chris has held management positions at HP and Symantec in addition to advisory roles at startups. He has worked extensively on monetization, SAAS, IoT, ecosystems, partne...

Cloud-enabled transformation has evolved from cost saving measure to business innovation strategy -- one that combines the cloud with cognitive capabilities to drive market disruption. Learn how you can achieve the insight and agility you need to gain a competitive advantage. Industry-acclaimed CTO and cloud expert, Shankar Kalyana presents. Only the most exceptional IBMers are appointed with the rare distinction of IBM Fellow, the highest technical honor in the company. Shankar has also received the prestigious Outstanding Technical Achievement Award three times - an accomplishment befitting ...

Poor data quality and analytics drive down business value. In fact, Gartner estimated that the average financial impact of poor data quality on organizations is $9.7 million per year. But bad data is much more than a cost center. By eroding trust in information, analytics and the business decisions based on these, it is a serious impediment to digital transformation.

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Business professionals no longer wonder if they'll migrate to the cloud; it's now a matter of when. The cloud environment has proved to be a major force in transitioning to an agile business model that enables quick decisions and fast implementation that solidify customer relationships. And when the cloud is combined with the power of cognitive computing, it drives innovation and transformation that achieves astounding competitive advantage.

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Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life settlement products to hedge funds and investment banks. After, he co-founded a revenue cycle management company where he learned about Bitcoin and eventually Ethereal. Andrew's role at ConsenSys Enterprise is a multi-faceted approach of strategy and enterprise business development. Andrew graduated from Loyola Un...

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DXWorldEXPO | CloudEXPO are the world's most influential, independent events where Cloud Computing was coined and where technology buyers and vendors meet to experience and discuss the big picture of Digital Transformation and all of the strategies, tactics, and tools they need to realize their goals. Sponsors of DXWorldEXPO | CloudEXPO benefit from unmatched branding, profile building and lead generation opportunities.

Our cities have been connected since the dawn of urbanization in the Indus Valley and on the plains of Mesopotamia nearly ten millennia ago. Cities exist to gather and connect people, bringing us together into communities and joint ventures that need complex networks of communication. But in recent years the connected city has come to mean something more. Today and in the future, the connected city will not just be about people connecting with people, but people with machines, people with people via machines, and perhaps most importantly, machines with machines.

Cloud Expo | DXWorld Expo have announced the conference tracks for Cloud Expo 2018. Cloud Expo will be held June 5-7, 2018, at the Javits Center in New York City, and November 6-8, 2018, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA. Digital Transformation (DX) is a major focus with the introduction of DX Expo within the program. Successful transformation requires a laser focus on being data-driven and on using all the tools available that enable transformation if they plan to survive over the long term. A total of 88% of Fortune 500 companies from a generation ago are now out of busin...

DXWordEXPO New York 2018, colocated with CloudEXPO New York 2018 will be held November 11-13, 2018, in New York City and will bring together Cloud Computing, FinTech and Blockchain, Digital Transformation, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, AI, Machine Learning and WebRTC to one location.

DXWorldEXPO LLC announced today that ICOHOLDER named "Media Sponsor" of Miami Blockchain Event by FinTechEXPO. ICOHOLDER give you detailed information and help the community to invest in the trusty projects. Miami Blockchain Event by FinTechEXPO has opened its Call for Papers. The two-day event will present 20 top Blockchain experts. All speaking inquiries which covers the following information can be submitted by email to [email protected] Miami Blockchain Event by FinTechEXPO also offers sponsorship and exhibit opportunities.

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From the article (with some modification to avoid political landmines), we get the following:
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Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.